"Today at the JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Boston, Tami Reller shared with the audience that the update previously referred to as 'Windows Blue' will be called Windows 8.1 and will be a free update to Windows 8 for consumers through the Windows Store." They really didn't have much of a choice, but good news anyway.

Really. TBH I would have found it bloody hilarious if they charged another €30 euros again for the upgrade just to see everyone foaming at their mouths. When MacOSX has a similarly short release cycle these days and charges a similar amount but makes the expensive hardware obsolete that is still working perfectly fine and capable of running the OS.

Just not the same hype and targeted audience. Btw Apple's update have more of an upgrade, with added functionalities, not "just" a compilation of security fixes/patches/UImod to restore usable behaviors after badly anticipated users' anger.

Keep in mind that if Windows 7 machines were still sold, they would surely outnumber Windows 8's.